Physicalists, how do you account mental states?

Question

I can follow the materialists to a point, however, I cannot totally wrap my head around a materialist account of mental states. I don't believe in an immortal soul as my namesake did. But there seems to be a qualitative difference between synaptic connections or C-fiber stimulations and that feeling that I have when eating a nice, juicy steak or downing a tall cold draft beer. Philosophers refer to the experiences that I have when seeing red, tasting beer or steak as qualia. There have been questions on qualia here at YA. I guess I'd just like to know how materialists or physicalists account for qualia or mental states.

Answer 1

The most consistent form of materialism that I have encountered is eliminative materialism. This position holds that all talk of qualia must be eliminated from our philosophical and psychological vocabularies as folk psychology. For example, people in the past used to talk of witches having powers over people's health, such as causing illness and disease in people. We now know that bacteria, viruses, etc. cause these ailments. The elminativist holds that just as we do not ascribe "witchcraft" to offering an explanation for our ailments anymore, likewise we should stop offering talk of "qualia" as an explanation for our mental states.

Of course the eliminativists have a huge problem. So far they have not been able to offer a comprehensive physical understanding of our mental states. They only offer promisory notes toward future research.

Answer 2

I think a typical materialist would completely deny that there is some ineffable characteristic contained in an experience that is sometimes called a 'quale' (the singular of 'qualia').

I'm sure you've imagined an event that you have never done before. Hasn't everyone? We often talk about how something was better or worse or in other ways different from how we expected and to what degree.

It is that latter point of degree that we might focus on. If an experience can be better AND worse than you imagined, and even more better and more worse, then perhaps it can be EXACTLY as good as you imagined. And if it's possible to be exactly as you imagined in one degree, then it might be possible to be exactly as imagined in every degree.

And though you're probably a lot less likely to find people who are so accurate in there projections, I'm sure there are no small number. All of which suggests that qualia are not real things.

And if there are no qualia, then there is no problem describing all of experience as mental states. How any particular mental state seems to you would be merely a product of how it operates in your brain.

Answer 3

You have to separate materialism from a theoretical spiritualism. On the one hand we know that material may exhist, but it is purely temporal or corporal because it constantly changes: ie. you die and rot. However the energy in your synaptic system as well as the energy contained in your "reality" does not. It is simple physics of the conservation of said energy. Once you die, where does that energy go? As far as "mental states" are concerned, that is purely qualitative and is not universal or intrinsic. The trait to like a juicy steak is totally abhorrent to a vegetarian. There really is no way to define preference outside of your culture. I would rather eat a steak than fried grasshoppers, but then again someone on this earth will think I'm nuts because they go for the grasshoppers and consider cows sacred. Whatever.

Answer 4

Everything is matter, albeit a statistical probability. 'Feelings' are only physical actions. Try Frijof Capra Tao of Physics and Turning Point